We all recognise chook as an Australianism for chicken. The word comes from British dialect chuck (also appearing in the form chookie), where it was used as a ‘call to fowls’, and then as a word for ‘fowl, hen, chicken’. It became established in Australian English in the second half of the nineteenth century, though with a variety of spellings: chuckey, chookie, choock. The spelling chook had won out by about 1910.
The word is now so established in Australian English that anyone with the surname Fowler is likely to be nicknamed ‘Chook’ Fowler. The compound chook raffle was established by the 1960s as a term for a raffle, often in a pub, for which the prize was a ready-to-cook chicken. The idiom he couldn’t run a chook raffle came to be used as a comment on perceived incompetence, as in this recent letter to the editor in the Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 20 March 2009: ‘Senators Fielding and Xenophon, who were elected by a miniscule number of votes, parade around promoting themselves as saviours of the Australian people. I frankly would not employ them to run a chook raffle.’
A chook house, or chook yard, or chook run is a fenced-off area (often fenced in chicken wire) where domestic poultry are kept. But what do you make of the following chook runs?
Chook run plucks eagle. In a recent chook run at Belconnen, member Hamish Murray scored an eagle on the 480m par-five 17th. Canberra Times, 11 December 2008
Goondiwindi golfer Bonhomme, a regular in the Friday ‘chook run’ on the bush course four hours’ drive southwest of Brisbane, traded shots with heavyweights Allenby and Geoff Ogilvy early in the day. Courier-Mail, 14 December 2007
BOWLS Belconnen: chook run, mixed pairs, men, women, coaching 10 a.m. Canberra Times, 9 December 2006
Our bowlers suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of Kerang last Saturday. ... The chook run tonight will commence at 6 p.m. and names to John Hunter or Herbie Hehir no later than 5.30. Pastoral Times, 25 November 1988
This is clearly a new sense of chook run, which involves a competition (usually a shortened form of the usual competition) at a sporting club, for which the prize is much the same as that for a pub chook raffle—a ready-to-cook or frozen chicken.
